Amun: Hey, it’s the first show of these guest posts that I’ve seen! Firechick is back with last year’s “Do It Yourself” (I have a ton to say, so join me in the comments!)
So…I initially passed over Do It Yourself!! because I had already been watching a bunch of other anime, so it wasn’t on my radar. But by the end of this month (This review was originally written on December 21st, 2022), I was getting sick and tired of one anime I was watching, Bibliophile Princess, so on a whim, I decided to watch Do It Yourself!! just so I could have something else to focus on. This wound up being a good decision on my part, as while it’s definitely another Cute Girls Doing Cute Things sort of anime, it actually does manage to stand out from the others by virtue of the fact that it’s all about making things by hand and being staffed by people who actually put some passion into the show and care about it.
The story goes as follows: Serufu Yua and Miku “Purin” Suride are childhood friends who had planned to apply to a tech-savvy school together, but the accident prone Serufu flunked the entrance exams and wound up getting shunted to another, more traditional school. Miku isn’t too happy about this, and their friendship is strained as a result. Serufu accidentally ruins her bike while on her way to school, but a passerby fixes it up for her. The passerby, a classmate named Rei Yasaku, is the president of Gatagata Girls’ High School’s DIY Club, which centers on making old fashioned crafts by hand, but it’s in danger of shutting down due to not having enough members. Thinking this might be the best way to repair her friendship with Purin, Serufu joins the DIY Club in the hopes of creating projects that could bring them together once more, with new members joining shortly afterward…assuming she doesn’t hurt herself yet again.
From a technical standpoint, the animation is quite good. A lot better than I thought it’d be, actually. While it doesn’t have much in the way of shading, sharp linework, or extremely bright colors, the actual animation is surprisingly kinetic. Characters move smoothly and fluidly, with a lot of careful attention given to body language and how the characters present themselves, like Serufu’s meandering gait and how Jobko always has her hands in her pockets. The backgrounds have a unique, watercolor look to them, and for some reason the girls all have two-toned hair, though it’s not as obnoxiously clashing as Healer Girl’s characters have. While DIY’s anime isn’t the flashiest, the animators knew what they were doing and put their all into what matters most, like the nails, drills, hammers, and capturing the tactile sensation of drilling a nail into place. To quote another reviewer, DIY’s investment in these details helps instill a sense of authenticity that buoys the show’s ambitions to inspirational and educational heights. The soundtrack is equally pleasant, tranquil, and laid-back, though the opening theme is a bit too squeaky for my ears.
I am kind of mixed on the characters, though. They’re not exactly the most groundbreaking or three-dimensional, which is fine, but they do have some subtle traits that do manage to make them feel just a little more than just one-note moeblobs. Serufu, in spite of her accident prone klutziness, actually does pretty well in school when she isn’t daydreaming and is a competent artist. I could actually relate to Takumi, her love for a certain book series, and her insecurities, and Rei is pretty likeable too. But the other half of the cast fares a little less well. Shii doesn’t really do much except act like a squeaky-voiced five-year-old who screeches “Meow!” all the time, Jobko bordered on being insufferable in the beginning, though thankfully she calmed down a bit later on, and Purin’s whole reason for being a tsundere towards Serufu just came off as really petty and stupid. Purin, I get it, you’re mad that Serufu didn’t get into the same school as you, and it’s understandable that you’d be mad at her about it for, like, a day or two, but it’s not like the two of you can’t see each other anymore! Her school is literally in the same area as the tech school you go to, and you two literally live right next to each other, for God’s sake! And continuing to be unnecessarily bitchy towards her long after the fact makes her come across as petty and shallow. I know she gets better at the end, but having to deal with her being a whiny brat over something that didn’t need to be made into a huge conflict was just annoying to me.
But Purin’s tsundere schtick isn’t the only problem the show has. There’s one particularly huge flaw that stops the show from achieving true greatness, I feel, and it’s a big one. Does NOBODY have any concept of basic safety equipment or safety regulations?! These high school aged girls never wear goggles, cut resistant gloves, dust masks, and so on, yet they engage in a lot of woodworking, which in real life requires all of those things! One scene shows Takumi cutting into glass, and somebody posted on a discussion forum about DIY that it’s important to wear breathing protection when cutting into glass, because not doing so is extremely dangerous. Every science class I took in school mandated that every student wear goggles, masks, or gloves before handling any kind of chemical whatsoever. Safety regulations exist for a reason, producers! As much as I like this show and its whole ethos, I’m concerned that somebody might watch this show and think they can use power tools without basic protection and wind up cutting their own arm off as a result. Stuff like that happens if you’re not careful and don’t follow safety guidelines! Which also makes me wonder why a school would even allow teenage girls to use woodworking tools without safety equipment. If something like that happened in America, the school would get sued to high heaven. Also, this is more of a personal nitpick but BY GOD Jobko’s voice is annoying as fuck! Who’s bright idea was it to make a 12-year-old sound like a dying chipmunk?! Just listening to her voice hurts my ears, and it borders dangerously close to Misaki Kuno levels of straining, unsustainable squeakiness.
I also wish there was a bit more detail on the worldbuilding, such as how technology managed to advance so quickly, but I do like that the anime just treats it as normal and not too big a deal, as this is just the world the girls live in. Plus, DIY as an anime is more about stressing that no matter how far technology advances, building things from the ground up with your own hands is still important and still has its place. It doesn’t try to claim that technology and technological advances in and of themselves are bad, something I very much appreciate. After all, every new bit of technological advances started off as a DIY project at some point, didn’t it? Do It Yourself!! as an anime isn’t going to set the world on fire, but I don’t think you should miss out on it, especially if you like iyashikei anime with a bit more meat on their bones. Hell, the only reason I got into it was because of this article I found, which argues why anime centering around people who are passionate about their hobbies can be good in their own right, even if they’re not like your typical mainstream anime. Do It Yourself!! has its issues, sure, but it’s a cute, wholesome, laid-back anime about making stuff with your own hands and having a good time.
Oh boy! I liked this show, but I felt it’d be pretty forgettable – I love getting to think about it again.
I sort of agree with the comments on the animation, but I feel the character designs capped how good it could be. The best I can say is that the animation didn’t hold the show back, but it also wasn’t the kind of show (like JJK or CSM) where the animation can carry.
Serufu’s lack of coordination was a bit painful, but uh…I’m definitely a Purin fan. Great to see here come around.
Okay, the safety stuff in Japan I actually know something about! While I don’t know about the high school level, at the professional level, safety standards (think OSHA in the USA) are VERY different. For example – I’ve been in a factory where the only required safety equipment was a baseball cap. The safety device – and I’m not joking – was the brim of the cap would prevent you from getting your face too close to the machinery. I think the point was each machine station or tool had built in safety, so it wasn’t the full responsibility of each individual worker to keep themselves safe (I’m sure in welding situations or more specialized they used better safety equipment). A very different paradigm for sure – also I’m sure they underwent years more training than their US counterparts.
All that to say, I didn’t think the portrayed safety standards are unrealistic. The level of personal responsibility is wholly different than here in the US – if you get hurt, it’s your own fault. (I think the glass cutting happened outside, but yeah, you should cut that wet at least, I’d say – there were some other things that I thought were a bit unrealistically ambitious). Definitely don’t do this at home, kids.
All in all, I liked this show – it was in a pretty stacked season, but I watched it all the way through. Would recommend.
Ah, so the whole safety standards things is more of a cultural thing than anything else. Thanks for the intel, Amun! I learned something new today!
I do. Not care for overly cute girls doing random shit anime. I hope a future guest reviews Bungo stray dogs because that show deserves more attention